Now don't get me wrong, I'm no stranger to dropshipping, I know how it works. And truth be told, dropshipping is older than the Internet itself. So I've got no problem with someone making a couple of quid if they are sourcing a product from somewhere for a little bit cheaper and providing a good service at the same time.
However, the annoying, or down right sneaky part of what I keep coming across, is that most sellers are just sourcing everything from Amazon. So all they do is search eBay for popular items, and then find the same item on Amazon and see if its for sale cheaper.
If it is they list the item on eBay, and when someone orders it through them on eBay, they just buy it (with the buyers money) from Amazon and give the Amazon seller the persons name and address and say - deliver it to that address please. If the person doing this is selling quite a few items per day, they usually purchase Amazon Prime to take advantage of certain offers, such as super fast free delivery.
One quick example of a product listed on eBay UK that's now basically dominated by people dropshipping it from Amazon, is Health Aid Halibut Liver Oil Capsules. I wanted to buy a bottle of Halibut Capsules from eBay, and every big seller that has it listed was just ordering it from Amazon. So they don't have any physical stock what so ever. In fact, even many of the Seven Seas Cod Liver Oil listings are very similar. So many of the listing results are just Amazon dropshippers. There's literally around £2 profit in each purchase.
Once the transaction is complete the eBay seller (Amazon dropshipper) keeps the price difference (minus fees) as their profit. Under normal circumstances the original buyer would be none the wiser. But with Amazon being such a huge company, and understandably making the decision to put their branding on every box / parcel they deliver, the person who thought they purchased an item from a normal seller on eBay ends up receiving a parcel from Amazon.
While maybe a little confused, most people don't have a problem with this, but some do. And to be honest, I am one of them. I, like some of the others, find it a bit sneaky. It's just, I'm trying to buy something from eBay, and really, most people are unknowingly buying it from Amazon.
If I personally wanted to buy from Amazon I would have just went to their site to begin with. The ironic thing is, I did end up going to Amazon because the eBay seller turned out to be a complete disaster, claiming to have posted the item twice, but nothing ever turned up.
Strange how I'd ordered many items from other sellers before I placed an order from him and they all arrived just fine. Needless to say, this seller was an Amazon dropshipper with a ton of excellent feedback on eBay, but still couldn't manage to place a simple order.
He either didn't place the order at all for reasons that are a mystery to me, or he has used a 10th Class snail-mail postal service that takes the items he sends on an around-the-world tour before reaching my residence. The seller in question has since gone on to receive over 1000 negative feedback for the month of December alone.
Make that 1222 negative feedbacks for December the last time I checked. Seems like no one got their items. I waited for 3 weeks (still not received anything) but did get a refund though. So at least I never lost any money.
Anyway, some of the people doing eBay-to-Amazon drop shipping are making big money. I seen one seller on eBay who actually has over 100,000 items listed on eBay UK, from books to drills (wherever they've found profit to be made), that are all just dropshipped from Amazon.
In fact, over the course of me buying some items, I came across several huge sellers like this who must be making a lot of money. All those £1 - £10 Pounds mount up when you're selling hundreds, or even thousands of items each day / month.
1 comment:
halibut better than normal cod liver oil. more natural vit a and d
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